mindf*#k

reflections along the way

Photo by Simran Sood on Unsplash

“You suck!”

My daughter exclaimed this through quiet tears a few weeks ago. It was a conversation that ended up being pretty much what I had meant to communicate when I wrote this letter (that I never gave her.) Here’s how we got there…

I need to reiterate that it’s been several weeks now and the details are a little fuzzy. I’ve done much reflection on this conversation and spoke with my daughter’s therapist again just a few days ago. It’s really hitting me, the mindf*#k my daughter is currently experiencing and the level of disintegration that’s going to slam her when this delusion crumbles. And as a result, how hard she’s got to work right now to sandbag the potential leaks of truth. I suspect she’s fighting hard at the moment to prevent realization of the depth of the damage that might be too painful to bear if she allows any shred of doubt to penetrate her defenses. 

This conversation began when I asked her if we could discuss why her brother doesn’t feel he can have any friends over to our home. He’d calmly told me the previous night that I would “need to really change” if he were to feel comfortable inviting guests over. I asked him to help me understand what he meant by that and he explained that his friends think he has a brother, not a sister. They all know her from the learning environment that my kids attended together until she graduated this past spring. One of the friends in his group is also trans-identified, though I’m not exactly sure in what way. He’s changed his name, and I’m pretty sure requests that others use plural pronouns when talking about him. 

I do want to make clear that I think my son and I have a pretty solid relationship. This mindf*#k has him its grip as well as he tries to make sense of how to be in this woke world with a mother who rejects the belief system. I know none of this description is how he sees things. Reconciling what he knows of me with what he’s been told about people like me has got to be so terribly confusing. I’m grateful he navigates all this with the grace that he does. He balances his charm and boyish playfulness with a maturity that melts my heart. 

What confuses me is that while his friends can’t come over, my daughter had her out-of-state “boyfriend” stay with us this spring so this young woman could attend my daughter’s graduation. I was not asked to remove the numerous pictures of my children’s younger years that cover so many of the walls in the common spaces of our home. The “you suck” conversation ensued when I decided to broach this topic with her, and as expected, she said something like, “that’s on you.” 

I reminded her of her friend’s spring visit, and asked if she’d have a problem with her brother’s friends coming over, and she said, “yeah, kinda.” This is about as far as this part got since the conversation turned to other things. 

At this particular time, my daughter was really frustrated at me for not letting her take my car on the 7-hour roadtrip to visit her friends back in that city where we used to live. The details here get strangely complicated. I’ll just say they all contribute to the mindf*#k. I’ve told her that she’ll need her own vehicle to make such trips (though she uses my car to travel to and from work which is only about a mile away from where we live, and to go to her weekly therapy appointments which are in a city that’s 1.5 hours away.) 

This anger she was harboring wasn’t much affecting our day-to-day. She’d been mostly in a good mood and pleasant to the other members of the household, but it certainly showed back up during this conversion. We’d had a previous conversation about this topic after I’d offered to go on this roadtrip with her, but we couldn’t seem to coordinate our work schedules. In this earlier conversation, she expressed how much she hates this work I do and can’t see why I can’t just cancel my clients’ appointments to accommodate this trip. 

Of course, I dug a little deeper to discover the feelings were more about how angry she is that we moved her away from that city. That conversation ended with an exchange about how she’s trapped here and her only path for the future is to move back to where her friends are. I called her out on that and said something like, “That’s not your only choice. That’s definitely a choice and you could make that move at any point; you’re a capable, working adult and you have the capacity to make a life anywhere you go. Even here.”

I acknowledged that I know she hates it here, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have made it better for herself if she’d allowed friendships to form. I also said something like, “there were lots of considerations that went into this move. I know you’re still angry about it, and you’re entitled to your anger. And it wasn’t all about you. No one is keeping you here now. While I’ve certainly made mistakes along the way, I take responsibility for them. What I don’t take responsibility for is your current experience. That’s on you.” 

So back to this last conversation and her insistence that it’s my fault that she’s not visiting her friends. Again, digging deeper, she was moved to sadness and expressed some deep homesickness. I spent some time acknowledging how painful I know homesickness to be. Her anger re-emerged and she said things like we don’t provide her enough financial support and I’m “actively dampering” her progression in life. I know I expressed surprise, but I think I managed to not posture defensively. 

Let’s start with financial support. I asked her to please help me understand how she’d arrived at this conclusion. (I did not point out that we don’t require any contribution from her toward food, housing, phone, etc . She does keep my car in gas since she drives it way more than I do, and is responsible for her therapy co-pays, her own clothing and hair products, and any extras she wants for herself. Oh, and she does supply the coffee for the house since this is a benefit of her job at Starbucks: a free lb of coffee/week.) 

Again, the details she described got complicated and didn’t make a lot of sense. Somehow, she blames us for her first car being a lemon because we didn’t contribute money so she could shop a higher price range. She was really having to do some mental acrobatics to make this work since we’d taken out a secured loan to support her to get this car. We did expect her to pay it off even when her car went kaput, and she’s done this.

I was clear from the getgo, since she was still just 17 when she first asked about roadtrips to this other city, that she could make these solo long-distance drives when she had her own vehicle. I explained that the maturity it would demonstrate for her to find herself behind the wheel of a car that belonged to her would show me that she was ready to travel alone on such trips. I also knew that by the time she made it happen, she’d be so close to 18 that there’d be little I could do to stop her anyway. Why not use this as an opportunity to talk about maturity and competence? 

Now the “actively dampering” comment. Huh? I asked her to help me with this, and she gave me her usual, “do I really have to say this out loud?” face. Never has she been able to be the first in a conversation with me to utter the word, “trans.” So I did. I asked, “do you mean when it comes to transitioning?” 

“Yes.” Again, I asked her to help me understand how I was “actively dampering” her progress here. This is when it really started to get interesting. Evidently, knowing I think it’s a bad idea is one way that I’m a barrier. (Oh the complicated feelings I have about this.) In the moment, I felt compelled to lift up that didn’t seem like actively dampering to me. I reminded her that I’ve acknowledged that she’s an adult and that I trust her to make the healthiest decisions she can for herself, and she and I don’t have to agree on what those are. Yes, it will be painful for me if she chooses to medicalize, but that’s not the same as “actively dampering,” and there’s not a whole lot I can do about changing my feelings. 

She fell back on the script here about how I have no right to feel pain about her choices. It’s not my pain to feel, or something like that. I think I got a little intense here and did call “bullshit.” I took up for moms’ experiences when our children make decisions we find painful. “No, we can’t stop you, but we’re entitled to our feelings.”

Also, she said something about the lack of financial support here as well. And I reminded her that I’ve offered to help pay for medicalization because I believe there are predatory doctors out there experimenting on trans people and I want to make sure she doesn’t end up as some greedy doctor’s lab rat. That all I ask is that we look together at the research and make sure she’s getting the best possible care. 

She said, “You just want to show me the research that says it’s all bad.” 

“I don’t plan to show you anything. I just want to see what you’ve found that can reassure me that what you want to do is safe and effective.” 

She said something like, “I’ve done plenty of research and you think I’m stupid.” 

“I think you’re probably the smartest 18 y.o. I know. I just also know a bit about 18 y.o. brains and that they don’t generally have quite the same capacity to weigh long term consequences.” And I mentioned that usually when making such serious decisions with permanent effects it’s a good idea to look at all sides, and pay attention to stories of people who didn’t have great experiences or who regret the procedures. 

She said, “have you been on the internet lately?” Pretty sure my face was blank, and I asked, “What do you mean?” She said something that implied she’s constantly bombarded these days with detransition stories. (Thank you, internet!) 

I think this may be where I lifted up again that maybe we could work together to find the best possible care so that she doesn’t end up one of them. She fell quiet. I think I had to get to a client session and moved to leave the kitchen. 

That’s when she burst out with her emotion-filled, “You suck!” 

After a couple of weeks of reflection and talking with her therapist again on Thursday, I’m filled with empathy and some concern for her current state. It would seem very clear to me, and her therapist seemed to think this was spot on, that she’s working very hard to project all her doubts onto me. And it seems to be keeping her safe—at least from medicalization. 

Knowing that it’s keeping her safe makes it seem totally crazy to keep reminding her that I’m not doing anything to stop her from moving in the direction she (thinks she) wants to go–both back to that city to immerse herself in the trans culture of her friends and toward presenting more like a boy through medicalization. 

Can you see my mindf*#k? I know my daughter really needs an initiatory experience into adulthood; she’s hiding out in our home and working really hard to blame us for her not making moves toward more independence and freedom. I ensure she’s clear that she’s welcome here, but it also seems really important to instill confidence that she’s got what it takes to make it as an independent adult. 

We never gave her a graduation present. I told her at the time that what I’d really like to give her is an experience, some other adventure before she moves back to that city. She had an opportunity last year to stay with a family in France for a few months but she decided to focus her efforts on getting a job and saving for her big move. I also encouraged her to consider moving down to stay for a period of time with those (very neutral about trans stuff) friends of ours in SoCal where she could get a taste of independence from us and continue to save for her move, but she’s not interested. She’s very focused on keeping her world small; I think deep down she knows to do anything else is to risk that reality starting to seep in. 

And then her fragile fantasy would fall apart. And she’d have to recognize the impact her obsession has had on those around her, including her influence on her best friend who’s already sacrificed her female vocal quality, her breasts, likely some of her bone integrity, and who knows what other aspects of good physical health, to this belief system. My daughter’s rejected the many attempts from the young people at “school” and from her job to befriend her; she’s resisted getting involved in anything local and spends most of her spare time on Discord with her small friend group from before. Thankfully, she’s never wanted to share her news with extended family, but she’s also worked to keep most of them at a distance as well.  

My heart aches for the pain she’s got in her future, and I hope she’s not too hard on herself when it becomes impossible to maintain the fantasy. That’s when her disintegration will truly begin, and I suspect it will be messy indeed. I can totally see how important it is to hold out as long as she can. What a mindf*#k! I hope we’ve done enough to communicate to her that she’s supported here, even if she can’t allow herself to consciously know that right now. 

Something occurred to me during Thursday’s conversation with her therapist; I said out loud and the therapist agreed, “I can see now that she’s choosing her family over the identity.”

*************

I got some tough news last night. In 2013, my older sister died from liver failure. She’d endured a bit of a tragic life as an adult, and she left behind two teenagers. Her daughter is now a single mom and is quite the badass. I hadn’t seen my nephew in some years; he hasn’t been to an extended family gathering that I know of for probably close to a decade (his mother’s funeral, maybe?) I think he’s spent some time in jail and struggled with addiction, like his mom. I got a text from my mom asking me to call her. She let me know that he’d died of a fentanyl overdose. 

I told my kids as I was headed to bed. My daughter remembered her cousin (I think she’s got 25 or so on this side) and which of my 11 siblings was his mom. She stood a little stunned in her doorway as I cried. My son couldn’t remember him, but he asked me if I’d like a hug. He stood up and wrapped his arms around me, told me how sorry he was and asked if there was anything he could do for me. My daughter continued to look tortured in the doorway, unsure what to do, it seemed. I can’t remember the last time she initiated a hug with me. I wasn’t clearheaded enough to help ease the awkwardness of it. Again, my heart aches for her in her confusion. She so needs me to be the bad guy. 

Today it’s my niece who weighs heavy on my heart. She has two half brothers but doesn’t speak to their father who was pretty abusive to my sister. When they lost their mom, she finished raising her brother, and now, not even 30 years old, she’s lost him too. Times like this leave me feeling really grateful for my problems. My mom said, “he’s safe now.”

p.s. My daughter and I leave early tomorrow morning on that much sought after road trip, together. Our schedules ended up syncing quite well afterall for a quick 4-day visit. She was giddy and grateful when I told her. We’ll both get to see old friends, and tomorrow night, she and I will get take-out from our favorite and much-missed Chinese restaurant. We plan to go back to the hotel, and, like we did often when we lived there, watch something together while we eat.